A new kind of class is coming to the communication department this fall.
COMM 4200, a special topics class, will focus on the creation of a science-fiction anthology web series called “The Computer Lab” to eventually be produced and directed by students at UCM.
Michael Graves, a professor of film at UCM, said he and fellow professor Mark von Schlemmer created the class thanks to an idea from Art Rennels, the chair of the communication department.
“He had an idea for a TV series or web series that would take place on UCM’s campus and that was really kind of it,” Graves said. “He had some general ideas about directions we could go, but he just thought that it was a great opportunity for our students to have active learning, to apply the knowledge that they’re learning in their classes toward the production of some work – a film (or) television show – and to have a professor integrally tied to that, sort of overseeing them.”
Graves said he and von Schlemmer brainstormed ideas for the web series. Initially, the ideas leaned toward a sitcom of an academic department’s wacky hijinks, but their combined interest in science-fiction led them down a different genre path.
“So we thought, ‘Well, what if there’s something weird about this place, something unsettling?’” Graves said. And that idea led them to create “The Computer Lab.”
“There’s this computer lab in the basement of a large university that’s an innocuous, mundane-looking

computer lab – nothing special about it at all,” Graves said. “And yet, there’s a computer in this computer lab that appears to be conscious, appears to be sentient and is kind of meddling in peoples’ lives in really profound ways.”
Graves said in the pilot of the web series, a graduate student appears to be getting messages sent to him from the future. He said the messages come to the graduate student in the form of the next day’s newspaper headlines and detail events in which he’s involved that have a negative impact on the people he loves.
“And as he tries to stop these things from happening, he ends up actually increasing the scope of damage to the people he loves and the end of the episode hopefully is a bit  of a twist that kind of calls into question where these supposed future messages are coming from,” Graves said.
Graves said “The Computer Lab” will not be a conventional, serialized show. It will exist as an anthology series where every episode is self-contained, similar to the likes of “Black Mirror.”
“We did that because we thought, ‘Well, if we’re going to get student actors to participate, it might be difficult for a student actor to commit to a season’s worth of television,’” Graves said. “So, this grad student in the pilot, we tell his story; it comes to a definitive conclusion and that character will never appear in any other episodes.”
Graves and von Schlemmer plan for students of many different disciplines to work on the web series as set and costume designers, makeup artists and musicians.
“So that’s what the hope is, is that we’ll do this special topics class next fall, hopefully fill that with a handful of students from DMP but also maybe some theater students, maybe some music students, depends on whoever is interested and what we can pull together as far as a production team,” von Schlemmer said.
Von Schlemmer and Graves said they will serve as the showrunners on the set, overseeing the entire series as the students working on set through the years come and go.
“If it goes past the first season, then maybe we invite alums to come back and direct an episode or maybe write an episode that a student will direct or something like that,” von Schlemmer said. “We’re really trying to leave it pretty open and flexible. I’m calling it a faculty/student coproduction at first, but certainly the students are going to be doing most of the roles and the producing (of) the film and shooting it and editing it.”
Von Schlemmer said he sees the class as more of a working production house.
“Thankfully I won’t be lecturing a lot,” von Schlemmer said. “We’ll be producing the episodes, so we’ll all gather ‘round, we’ll brainstorm ideas, we’ll read through the script, we’ll have the production designer start coming up with the ideas of what it should look like and we’ll cast it.”
Von Schlemmer said the class will be offered in fall of 2018. Interested students must apply no later than March 1. He said there aren’t any prerequisites for the class, but some experience with film production of some sort will come in handy.
“We’ve got an application form that basically lists the eight or nine main crew positions and when students apply for it they should mention which one of these crew positions they’re most interested in,” von Schlemmer said. “We’re limited to how many students will probably fit in the class, but there’s ways for students to get involved even if they don’t take the class this semester –whether it’s future episodes (or) whether it’s helping serve on a crew as a P.A. (production assistant)”
Graves said he thinks the class is an exciting opportunity for everyone involved. He said they’re hoping to get a big student response so the class can be offered more in the future.
“My hope is that students take advantage of this opportunity,” Graves said. “I think one thing we often tell our students – maybe they have this realization too late –is that they don’t have enough stuff for their demo reel. They don’t have enough examples of their work and I think this is an opportunity for them to get some real-world experience making this web series and be able to have some work that they can include in their demo reel and help them get a job.”